


Thommy week drabbles

by Laramie



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4835957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unconnected 100-word drabbles based on prompt words. Any triggers are put in the chapter notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dust

Dust is something not often seen in their prim and proper, artificial world. Despite the size of the house, the maids are meticulous (they have to be), so there's hardly a corner or a skirting board with a single speck left on it.

The exception, it seems, is ex-footmen's empty rooms. Thomas tries not to come in here too often, tries to save it for the worst days when he thinks his heart might just stop beating for the want of a glance at Jimmy's face or the accidental brush of his fingers. Every time Thomas enters, the dust gathers.


	2. Monster

When Jimmy was five, he was afraid of the monsters under his bed.

When Jimmy was nine, he was afraid of the big boys at school.

When Jimmy was twelve, he was afraid of his father after he had been drinking, especially after he saw the way Jimmy looked at Peter Miller.

When Jimmy was twenty-four, he was afraid to say no to his employer.

When Jimmy was twenty-nine, he was afraid of the way a man made him feel.

Now Jimmy spends his nights with Thomas Barrow's heartbeat against his back, and he's not afraid of anything any more.


	3. Tied up

It's not something he ever thought he would enjoy - really, it's not something he's even considered. But there's something liberating about having his hands tethered behind his head with a necktie, something which frees the words that have been secure in the back of his throat so that they fall from his mouth with abandon: "Please Thomas, yes, just like that." Maybe it's because his hands can no longer do the talking, cannot coax Thomas's mouth towards him for a kiss. There's a kind of freedom in being helpless to Thomas's touch; not that Jimmy had ever wanted to resist.


	4. Murmur

It's just a whisper at first, just a murmur in the undercurrent of gossip that keeps Downton afloat. Thomas doesn't worry at first; most people know about him. Jimmy doesn't believe anything like that could ever shatter his world.

So they're not prepared when the river drags them down, when the footman comes flanked with two policemen. He's new, he doesn't know them. He just knows that he can hear noises next door, late at night, and see Thomas wiping gravy from the corner of Jimmy's mouth with his thumb. He reports them.

They run, in order not to drown.


	5. Starve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: ED.
> 
> Mod AU.

He doesn't deserve Thomas. He knows he doesn't. Thomas is better-looking, kinder, funnier, just so much  _better_ than he is.

That's why he has daily gym sessions, fasts for as many hours as the number of notes he gets on that post, stops eating potatoes-pasta-rice-bread, lifts weights until he's still shaking when he crawls into bed hours later. That's why he pinches his weak, weak arms, stands on tiptoes because he's not man enough next to Thomas.

Thomas strokes Jimmy's stomach and teases that he needs more chocolate. Jimmy doesn't say that he hasn't eaten for 53 hours.

(And counting.)


	6. Person A gets drunk, confesses love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is actually for prompt day but it came out at 110 words so I've cut 10 and added it to this.

“I love you,” Jimmy slurred.

“Alright,” Thomas said, poking Jimmy into bed.

“No, I mean I _loooove_ you.”

“Yes, dear.” He pulled the covers up under Jimmy’s chin.

Jimmy pouted. “Why aren’t you more react-y?” he demanded, any eloquence stolen from him by the alcohol.

“Well we _have_ only been together for three months,” Thomas responded. “I suppose I should be falling over with shock.”

“Thomaaaaas,” Jimmy whined, his hand wavering as he reached out for him.

“Go to sleep, silly child,” Thomas told him. He kissed Jimmy on the forehead. “I love you too. Now shut up and sleep.”


	7. 48 Shine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magic AU.

Jimmy was far away, but Thomas had been patient. He rose from his bed before dawn and walked across the fields with his torch. The tall golden wheat made his hands itch where they brushed. Jimmy's hair had been soft.

He reached the hill and watched the sky turn orange, yellow, white and palest blue-grey. The clouds caught fire. Red tendrils reached out from the horizon. And at last, there he was, rising with the edge of the sun now peeking over the horizon: Jimmy's projection, waiting for him, from the other side of the world. Jimmy smiled. "Hello, Thomas."


	8. 51 Latte

It's the latte that does it. Thomas in accounting has been low-key flirting with Jimmy (he thinks) for weeks, clapping him on the shoulder and asking him about himself and complimenting his hair/humour/hat. The point is, it is  _so_ low-key that Jimmy isn't even sure that Thomas  _is_ flirting with him, even after Sarah tells him that Thomas is definitely gay and only smiles shyly like that at people he has a crush on. And then Thomas brings him a latte with a vanilla syrup shot, just how Jimmy likes it, and Jimmy hands over his phone number.


	9. 94 Full moon

"I don't know why we had to come out here anyway," Thomas says. "There's a full moon every bloody month and you're never usually this interested."

"But this is the harvest moon," Jimmy counters. "It's all red and stuff."

"Don't tell me you're going pagan."

"'Course I'm not, I just want to look at the moon, all right?"

"And I suppose you want to gaze at the stars while you're at it?"

"Look, I just wanted to come out here to spend some time with you on our own, is that so terrible?"

Thomas beams and blushes. "I suppose not."


	10. 55 Garden

It was some weird Thomas-scheme. He reckoned that if they grew their own vegetables they could cut their food bill in half. He wouldn’t listen when Jimmy pointed out that 90% of their evening meals came from the freezer section.

Jimmy’s favourite part about the idea was sitting back with a beer to watch Thomas get pleasingly sweaty. At the end of the day, he would massage Thomas’s sore shoulders. More than once, he questioned whether it was worth the hard work, but when they sat down to vegetable-garden soup, the look on Thomas’s face told him that it was.


	11. 44 Burn

His father burned the note that Johnny gave him when Thomas was twelve.

The house he squatted in after he left home was attacked by arsonists.

More than one person has thrown a lit match or cigarette at him, when they found out.

Philip threw the letters he had sent in the fire.

His hand burned when the bullet tore through it, after the flick of his trusty lighter.

And then there’s Jimmy, after Lady Edith let a stray spark take over her bedroom. Jimmy’s caught, in flagrante delicto. Thomas watches him go.

Everything he loves goes up in smoke.


End file.
